


Sirustep

by lizard_socks



Series: Rootstock: Origins [4]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Canon Compliant, Future (23rd Century), Gen, Goa'uld Symbiotes, Original Alien Species - Freeform, Season 9, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29169309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizard_socks/pseuds/lizard_socks
Summary: It's the late 24th century. The catlike Sharona Misam and his human friend Ashley are living on the planet Iroshar, looking for steady work, when a "broken" time travel device takes them back to the year 2005.While the ever-prepared Misam seeks help from Stargate Command (and from Em-80, the Russian team's oddly glib alien member), Ashley tries to process what it means to be back in the decade she grew up in - and prepare herself for the possibility that she might not get back.
Series: Rootstock: Origins [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2163357
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

Iroshar  
2397  


"It says here you're... 408 years old?"

Ashley looked up at the waiter who she'd given her ID card to. He was a zhr, one of the buglike humanoid species native to the planet Iroshar, just like the other patrons in the mostly empty restaurant (although this guy was better dressed than most). She and Misam might have been the only two people in the whole place without antennae.

"I'm a time traveler," Ashley explained calmly. "Should be an age listed in the next box down."

"Oh, right." The waiter looked at her card one more time before handing it back. "Is that common on your planet?"  


"I wouldn't know." Ashley shrugged. "Haven't been back for years."  


Misam folded his orange tail over his lap and smiled to himself as the waiter walked away. "Is it always this hard for you to order drinks?" he asked Ashley.  


"Not if it's coffee." Ashley brushed her long blonde hair out of her eyes and grabbed a tortilla chip from the bowl in front of her. "It's not just the time thing either. Sometimes I have to convince people that I'm a human."  


"To be fair," Misam said, "no human with your skin tone would have that as their natural hair color."  


"Eh, it's worth it. Makes me feel cool. Besides, I'm used to being different. I go through the world with the expectation that other people are going to be different from me. I don't need to be good-looking or anything. I just want to stick out."  


Misam took a chip of his own and eyed it for a few seconds before putting it in his mouth. "You sure these things are free?" he asked.  


"I mean, assuming you're gonna order something else after. You've been to Earth restaurants, right? That's pretty much what this is."  


"It's the 24th century, Ashley. Earth doesn't use money anymore. I don't even know how much I'm supposed to pay for that thing where you pay extra to the waiter. What's that called?"  


"A _fooi_? I don't know, I always just do twenty percent. Of what the bill would be, if you didn't use a gift card."  


"This is so _confusing._ " Misam's ears fluttered. "I can't believe I decided to move to a capitalist planet."  


"This is how you know you've made it, Misam! The only thing every Iroshan has in common: they all hate Iroshar. And each other."  


"I don't know if I can really _hate_ anything. Even when I should. Why'd _you_ move here, anyway?"  


"Earth is..." Ashley paused. "Well, it's different than it was when I grew up. Before I ended up here, in the future. It just didn't feel right, I guess."  


Misam looked out the window. "You know this will be the first time I've lived on a planet?"  


"You've never even lived on your homeworld, have you?" asked Ashley.  


"Not really. I was raised on starships. Earth's fleet always protected us, so my parents wanted to help protect them. Then I went to Princeton, and then I signed up for the fleet myself right after. Not much reason for a xenobiologist to stay in one place."  


"Not even Earth? I mean, you studied there, you worked aboard its starships, you even adopted one of its religions, for Christ's sake."  


"Well, really, Christ did it for _my_ sake."  


Ashley laughed. "You're an alien, Misam."  


"I'm a gentile, right? Same as anyone else. Anyway... how do you find a job around here that actually takes you places? I've been doing some ship flips here and there but I'm really looking for something where I can travel."  


"And help out?"  


"Yeah, for sure. I wanna feel like I'm making a difference, even if it's just helping, like, two people."  


"I've got something you might be interested in," Ashley said. "I applied for it, actually, but I think you should too. You'd be more qualified anyway. General Interplanetary in North Wind City is looking specifically for non-Iroshans for transport and freighter duty."  


"Why? We're _on_ Iroshar. Can they discriminate against zhrs like that?"  


Ashley just shrugged. "Every other planet does. Maybe they're just meeting the demands of the market."  


* * *

About a week had passed when Misam called Ashley and asked her to check out his newest ship flip.  


"So _this_ is the spacecraft you wanna fix up and resell?" Ashley put her hands on her hips. "Wow. An actual Alteran gateship. This thing's gotta be ten thousand years old, at least."  


"Maybe not," Misam said. He walked through the open hatch and pointed out a device in the ship's cargo hold. "No one's _built_ a ship like this in ten thousand years, sure. But this one's got a time machine."  


"Seriously? And the government just let you have it?"  


"The time machine's broken. And I'm not gonna try to fix it - I was actually thinking of sending it to Earth or Lantea for study. But when these things do work, they don't just go into the past, right? I think someone, at some point, used this ship to jump to our time, then sold it off for some seed money."  


"Gotta have that money." Ashley followed Misam into the ship. She pointed to some mismatched equipment mounted on the dash. "I'm guessing this is what had you interested?"  


Misam nodded. "It's been hotwired to run on aftermarket controls, so you don't need the Ancient gene. It's still got the Stargate dialing pad, though." He gestured towards the area between the seats.  


"I didn't think there were any Stargates in the Milky Way anymore," said Ashley.  


"There aren't. But that means stuff like this is pretty hard to come across, and that's what makes it valuable." Misam paused to admire the ship's design. "You know, the only reason this ship has to actually run is because Iroshans like a working specimen. Whoever buys it isn't actually gonna use it."  


"How long do you think it'll take to get it running?"  


"I've already got everything in place, actually," said Misam. "I was just gonna give it a try. Wanted to show you first, though."  


"You're going out on your own? Sure you don't want me to come along?"  


"I'll be fine. I've been around starships my whole life." Misam walked over to the pilot's chair, then stopped and looked back at Ashley. "If you really _want_ to, though..."  


* * *

"These ships might have been built by the Alterans, but they're not that much more advanced than what we have today," Misam said as be piloted the ship out of Iroshar's atmosphere. "The neural interface is the only part we haven't been able to reproduce. And the one on this ship's already been torn out."  


"What about the time machine?"  


"Well, that's not part of the ship," said Misam. "It's _on_ the ship." He glanced behind him. "Did you hear something beeping?"  


"A microwave?" Ashley asked. "Sounds like my food's ready."  


"I think that was the time machine." Misam pulled a handheld radio from his pocket. "We might have activated it."  


"Seriously?" Ashley said. "No microwave? I was hungry." She followed Misam into the cargo bay. "And I thought you said it was broken."  


"I mean, it _seemed_ broken," said Misam. "If it did go off, we have to figure out where we ended up. I'm not getting anything on this. Something's definitely happened. Wait... here's something on the AM band."  


"You have an AM radio?"  


"I've seen a lot of weird stuff in my career in the fleet. You always have to be ready." He fine-tuned the radio. "Sometimes there would even be a data subcarrier. Hopefully we can get the date and time."  


Ashley walked back to the front of the ship and looked out the window. "You'd think a time machine would be, I don't know, noisier. We _are_ still orbiting Iroshar, right? Don't you think one of those old-timey people is gonna see us?"  


"Don't worry about that," said Misam. "Ship's cloaked. And the technology Iroshans use to see cloaked ships hasn't been invented yet."  


"What year is it?"  


Misam glanced at the radio's display. "Earth year? 2005. I think August." He looked over at Ashley. "Shouldn't you be panicking?"  


"Hey," said Ashley. "I've time traveled before. I mean, that was on purpose, but still. It wouldn't be the first time I've been stranded. What about you? Shouldn't _you_ be freaking out right now?"  


"I always come prepared, Ashley." Misam rolled up his sleeve and used a claw to rip a hole on the inside fabric. He pulled out a notecard. "Iroshar may not have been aware of alien life. My homeworld wasn't either. But there were people, from Earth, in 2005, who were fully aware of both extraterrestrials _and_ time travel."  


Ashley gave Misam a skeptical look as he slid back into the pilot's seat. "You're really going to drive this ship to Earth?" she asked.  


"It's the 21st century, remember? The Milky Way galaxy had a Stargate network back then. And this ship's made to fit through the gate."  


"So you're going to find a Stargate, dial Earth, and emerge under a mountain in America with soldiers pointing guns at you."  


"Not that mountain, Ashley," said Misam. "A _different_ mountain."  



	2. Chapter 2

Em-80 was the first one to approach the ship.  


The Atlantean puddle jumper had come right through the gate, landing on the floor with a thud. There were about a dozen other people in the bunker under the mountain at the Alpha Site, and they all backed away, weapons raised. Lieutenant Wyman looked at the computer monitor and informed everyone that there was no GDO code, valid or not, coming from the ship. Not terribly helpful. If Em-80 had been in charge, she'd have had an iris installed, like they had at the SGC.  


Then again, the Americans had lost their last two Alpha Sites, so maybe that wouldn't have been the best use of resources.  


Em-80 had been stationed at the SGC for a year or so. It wasn't hard to tell her apart from the rest of the personnel: she had light green skin (the color of mint toothpaste), big black eyes with white pupils, and a Russian flag on the shoulder of her uniform. Back when the Russians had their own Stargate program, they had been the ones to rescue her from a lifetime spent floating in the depths of space, and as long as her adoptive homeland wanted her to cooperate with the U.S. military, that's what she'd do. Not that she was complaining - getting to mooch off the Americans while they paid for everything was too good to pass up.  


"Are you sure you should be the one to check?" Sgt. Andreyev, her teammate on SG-4 , spoke to her in Russian. "You are rather important to our group. Our government asked for you specifically."  


"I'm the hardest one here to kill," said Em-80. She thought that should have been obvious. Everyone knew how it went: Mathis on SG-26, then her, then Teal'c if he ever decided to come back, and finally everyone else. It was basic biology. She opened the hatch and stepped in.  


"Hey," she said, addressing the two beings in the front of the ship. "How long are you gonna stay in here?"  


The pilot turned around. He was a short orange catlike alien with a messy haircut - not a species Em-80 had ever seen before. As for his co-pilot, she was an ordinary human, tall, thin, dark-skinned. She wore her hair long, dyed a very bright blonde - possibly an indicator of femininity? She could have been from any number of planets. Nothing about them was that unusual. What was unusual was their ship, and their names.  


"I'm Sam Dekker," the cat said. "This is my sister Ashley."  


"I can see the resemblance," said Em-80.  


Sam stood up, but Ashley stayed in her chair, crossing her legs over the side and turning to look at Em-80. "So," she said. "This is the Alpha Site, right?"  


"Were you expecting Americans? I can get you Americans."  


"I wasn't expecting a sorquine. But I'll take what I can get."  


"Ah, so you know my species. Or, should I say, my _current_ species. Very impressive. But surely you don't expect to just walk into a secure facility."  


"I mean, not really," Sam admitted. "We're kind of assuming you're going to arrest us."  


"And not kill us right away," Ashley added. "That was... also part of our plan."  


* * *

"Hey, the plan worked!" Misam leaned against the wall. "We got arrested!"

A trip through the Stargate in a ship was one thing, but going through on foot was... well, something else entirely. (Although Ashley thought the need for an armed escort did diminish the experience a little.) What really surprised her, though, was how impressed she was by Stargate Command itself. Concrete walls, CRT monitors... this was technology from her own era. They used the same laptop computers her dad used to have for his work trips. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. For a place like this to be embedded so completely with a piece of ancient technology? It was amazing to see in person.  


The inside of an underground cell was a little less interesting.  


"Did you have to tell them you had a Goa'uld in your tail?"  


"Hey, I told them it wasn't controlling me," Misam told her. "They were going to find out eventually; they wouldn't have trusted me if I wasn't the one to tell them. And they were gonna be suspicious of us anyway. Besides, isn't everything I said true?"  


"Everything except your name."  


"Sam Dekker is a normal human name."  


"Maybe for a basketball player from Sheboygan, but not for an alien! And yes, I looked it up."  


"When?"  


Ashley crossed her arms. "It's not the first time you've used that alias, Misam."  


"Oh, right. I forgot who I was talking to." Misam walked over to a bunk bed in the corner and sat down on the bottom bunk. His ears went flat against his head.  


"You okay?" Ashley asked.  


"Maybe I'm a little stressed. From being in _the past_. You know, when I was in the Earth fleet, I would have a team around me. More than just one person, I mean." He sighed. "Why'd we end up here, anyway? Why 2005? Why not 1066 or 3188 or 29?"  


"I figure it has something to do with me," said Ashley. "I mean, I was born in '89, right? And it was 2007 when I got pulled into the future and I met you."  


Misam nodded. "It's a couple years off, sure. But a lot of time machines won't work for jumps that short anyway. I'm just still wondering why it did anything at all."  


"We better figure it out, right? How else are we going to get back?"  


"Long-term stasis?" Misam leaned back. "Or maybe they could rig something up to keep me inside a wormhole, and just not reintegrate my matter for four hundred years or so. Not sure how you'd keep a gate open that long but it seems like something that would be possible."  


"What about me?" Ashley asked.  


"I thought you might want to stay here."  


"In Colorado? Too cold, I think." Ashley looked through the small window on the cell door. "I know what you mean, though. I thought about sticking around, maybe making my way back to Paramaribo somehow once my younger self is gone. But... to be honest, I'm not sure how... open I could be about my gender. And I'm not sure I want to find out."  


* * *

"We've got the test results back on the Alpha Site intruders." Dr. Lam handed a portfolio to General Landry as they walked through the halls of Stargate Command. "As far as we can tell, the alien is telling the truth, at least about his biology. The Goa'uld symbiote attached to his tail appears to be essentially brain-dead. What nervous system activity we did see in the symbiote is likely just a reflection of what's going on in his brain."  


"So it can't control him?" asked Landry.  


"Biologically, nothing's stopping it, but there's no distinct mind there to exert any control."  


"Then why leave it in?"  


"His immune system is dependent on it," Lam explained. "Even if his species had the technology to remove the symbiote, they'd still have to use something like tretonin to keep him alive. They might not have a reliable source."  


"What about the human?" the general asked.  


"Well, the most remarkable thing about her his her height - six foot four."  


"What about the hair?"  


"It's a wig." Lam shrugged. "She seems completely normal. It's surprising, actually, that neither of them have the Ancient gene. They shouldn't have been able to activate the time travel device on the ship."  


Landry nodded. "I'll get some people to look at it."  


* * *

Daniel Jackson and Cameron Mitchell stood in the cargo bay of the captured jumper, still sitting in the base at the Alpha Site.  


"The ship's definitely been hot-wired to run without the Ancients' neural interface," Mitchell said. "Hell, I could fly this thing. But I don't see any modifications like that on the time machine. You think we need someone with the Ancient gene to activate it before we can open it up?"  


"Unfortunately, there's no one at the SGC right now who we know has the gene," said Daniel. "Pretty much everyone we knew who did went with the Atlantis expedition. Besides, I'd rather not have it go off by accident again." He knelt down to get a closer look. "It is a time machine, though. I wonder if it could have been pre-programmed to detect a non-Ancient signature - to recognize someone they _knew_ would eventually stumble across it." He turned to his side. "What do you think?"  


"Why are you asking _me_?" Vala Mal Doran leered at Daniel out of the corner of her eye. "I don't exactly go around stealing _time machines_."  


"Well, you've stolen everything else, at one point or another. Figured I'd ask." He turned back to Mitchell. "Maybe we should run some tests on it. See if it's putting out any kind of radio signal."  


"Good idea," Mitchell said. "Let's head back and get the equipment."  



	3. Chapter 3

"I ran the readings from the Ancient time device through our computer," said Dr. Lee. He pulled up a diagram on the screen. "Most of the electromagnetic signals we detected match the one aboard the jumper we found on Maybourne's planet. But there's one signal that was only present on this particular device. We checked it against our database of other artifacts, and we found a match: a Goa'uld hand device left behind by Sirustep."  


Mitchell looked to Daniel. "I'm sorry," he said. "Who?"  


"Well," said Daniel, "it stands to reason that not every Goa'uld was successful in getting humans to worship them as gods."  


"Sirustep was part of a small group that attacked a Jaffa rebellion planet some years ago," said Lee. "She turned on the other Goa'uld present during the battle in an attempt to curry favor with Yu's faction against Anubis; she believed it was wisest to avoid conflict with us."  


"Still evil, though?" Mitchell asked.  


"Probably," said Daniel; "just not towards us, at least not right now. We really don't know a whole lot about her. But the hand device we recovered is different from the others we've found. It's programmed to only work for her. And however she does it, it's different from every other piece of Goa'uld technology we've seen."  


* * *

After a day or two of staring at the drab walls of their small room, Ashley and Misam were moved to a larger room, with even more drab walls. The only furniture was a table and four folding chairs. After the guards left, Ashley sat down on one of the chairs and grumbled something to herself.  


"You're still upset that you don't have the Ancient gene?" Misam took the seat next to hers, turning it around to face her instead of the table.  


"Yeah." She didn't return eye contact. "Guess that's on me for thinking I'm important."  


"Having a gene doesn't make you _better_ , Ashley. It just means you can borrow some dead people's ships. And what would you need with one of those, anyway?"  


Ashley sighed. "You want to know the real reason I left Earth? It's too damn perfect, that's why. I have to make an actual, tangible difference in the world around me. It's not enough for me that everyone has what they need - I have to be the one who _gives_ them what they need. I can't help people when nobody needs my help. That's why I moved to Iroshar. Sure, the whole planet's trash. But if you look through people's trash, you can find some cool stuff."  


"So you want to be a dumpster diver, but for... people?"  


"It's pathetic, isn't it? That I can't be content with other people's happiness if I'm not personally involved with it."  


The door opened behind them, and Andreyev and Em-80 walked in. The sergeant remained standing, but Em-80 took a seat on the other side of the table. She looked at the two of them for a few seconds.  


"How familiar are you with the culture of the Goa'uld?" she asked.  


"The pretending to be gods?" said Misam. "Or the constant infighting?"  


Em-80 gestured across the table at him. "See? You get it." She leaned forward. "The Alpha Site has come under surveillance by one of the remaining Goa'ulds," he said. "Her name is Sirustep. We don't believe she knows the base contains a Stargate - she hasn't launched any sort of attack on it. But we've recalled our personnel back here for the time being, just to be safe."

"So what do you need us for?" Ashley asked.  


"We're here to play a hunch," said Em-80. She removed a small device from her pocket and put it on the table. "This hand device once belonged to Sirustep. We believe it has been altered to work only for her."  


Ashley looked around the room. "Wait. So you think my friend's an evil Goa'uld? How would that work? The bad guy's gotta be at the Alpha Site, not here!"  


"I'll try it." Misam picked the device up. "Just gotta figure out what it does. It doesn't blow anything up, right?"  


"Point it away from Andreyev," Em-80 suggested. "Just to be safe. I like him."  


Misam turned to Ashley. "They believed us when we told them we were from the future," he explained. "They think Sirustep will eventually become the symbiote that's in my tail."  


"Seems like a stretch," Ashley told him.  


"It would explain why we ended up here. Maybe there's something I was meant to do."  


Misam took a step back. He pointed the device at a wall and concentrated. One second went by, then two, then three... The device began to glow... and then it shut off. Misam frowned, and threw a glance at Em-80. "Is that how it's supposed to work?" he asked.  


"Well, it turned on. That is all we needed to know." She smiled. "If all goes well, we may be able to turn this situation to everyone's advantage."  


* * *

Misam stood in the gate room, dressed in a multilayered all-black outfit; hopefully, it would be generic enough that Sirustep wouldn't realize he was affiliated with the Tau'ri. He stepped onto the ramp and toward the event horizon before looking back at Ashley, who was standing off to the side next to Dr. Jackson, her hands clasped in front of her. She seemed nervous enough for the both of them. He figured he ought to say something before he left. He took a seat on the side of the ramp, his feet dangling from the edge.  


"Ashley," he said. "I'm pretty sure this is a stable time loop scenario. But if I don't come back, that means we're talking about a branching timeline, or maybe an orphan timeline on my end. Either way, you've got options, all right? Your experience makes you an asset, and I'm sure the SGC would love to have you."  


"Or maybe even the Atlantis expedition. Might be easier to convince a civilian operation like that to hire a Surinamer like me. Do you really think you might not come back?"  


"I'm not sure why I wouldn't," Misam admitted. "But you never know what you don't know, right? I just... I know you have things you want to accomplish in your life. Don't give up on them if I leave."  


"It wouldn't be the first time I lost my friends," Ashley said. "At least I wouldn't be losing my family too."  



	4. Chapter 4

Misam stepped outside the Alpha Site base and onto the surface of the planet P4X-650. Using a remote control, he closed the large hangar door behind him and turned around, looking upwards and out into the forest. His long black robe was pushed against his legs and tail by the oncoming wind.  


Sirustep must have known from her scans that this planet was home to a Tau'ri base. If Em-80's hunch was right, the Goa'uld didn't know or care about the gate within the mountain. It was likely something else in the scans that caught Sirustep's attention: herself.  


It was best if the people at Stargate Command didn't know too much about the future, Misam thought; if this was indeed a time loop, he didn't want to be the one to break it. He hadn't told them what he knew about Sirustep from the history books. She had been the on-and-off ruler of a planet of lizard people. Continually manipulating their habitat and keeping them in small groups, she encouraged discord and radicalization on all sides, adopting multiple personas (by switching between multiple hosts) and using each to further stoke the flames. She wished not simply to rule, but to make people fight and to watch them destroy each other.  


And in his future, she was dead, from nothing more than a case of bad timing: attempting to hide herself in the body of a seven-year-old feline boy named Sharona Misam, right before the starship he lived on passed through a memory-altering spatial anomaly that destroyed the Goa'uld's genetic memory - and therefore, her very identity.  


But, here and now, in the year of the Lord two thousand and five, this particular false god was alive and kicking. Misam knew he ought to hate her. But he couldn't hate anybody.  


Which, in this case, made his job easier.  


A ring platform brought Sirustep down to the planet. She stood in front of him.  


"I greet you, Lord Sirustep," Misam said with a small bow. "I apologize for my brief disappearance. There were matters to which I needed to attend."  


"Your genetic signature is identical to mine," said Sirustep.  


"Yes. I am your future self. In fact, I remember this conversation well."  


"Well. If that is the case, then what does the future bring?"  


"Your instincts were correct, of course," Misam told her. "The Tau'ri have become the dominant force of the galaxy. And, as you can see, your symbiote is still very much alive 392 years from now, with enough power and influence to secure an Ancient time travel device."  


"And all that is necessary to secure this future is to refrain from conflict with the Tau'ri and their allies?"  


"Indeed. As long as you do this, you will not only survive, but thrive."  


* * *

Em-80 held a portfolio under her arm as she and Misam walked down the corridor. "What did you tell her?" she asked. 

"The truth. I told her she would be alive and thriving in the future, as long as she didn't antagonize Earth. And its allies."  


"And she thought you meant the Jaffa and the Asgard. Who did you really mean?"  


"My own species, of course. If she hadn't tried to take me as a host when I was seven, she'd still be alive."  


"So what took her down? Did she simply overextend herself?"  


Misam opened the door to the quarters he and Ashley had been assigned. "Never underestimate the power that comes with cooperation, Em-80."

The two of them entered the room, where Ashley was sitting on the lone bed, reading a pamphlet about Garden of the Gods. Misam did a double take. "Where am I supposed to sleep?" he asked.  


"You get the bed, Sam," said Ashley. "I'll take the floor. I can sleep anywhere."  


Em-80 grimaced as she set the portfolio down next to Ashley on the bed. "We all thought you were a couple."  


"We never said we weren't," Ashley told her. She picked up the portfolio and read through it. "Sure are a lot of words blacked out here."  


"It is confidential. By order of the international committee. But I was able to get partial clearance for the two of you. It concerns an unresolved report of alien interference in a sovereign Dutch-speaking Caribbean nation that shall remain nameless."  


"I see." Ashley paged through the report as Em-80 quietly left the room. "Wow... How'd they know?"

Misam took a seat next to Ashley on the bed. "What is it?" he asked.  


"My family. This guy - the name's blacked out, but he reported an alien abduction in Paramaribo."  


"Of his eighteen-year-old relative?"  


"It must be one of my uncles or something. And look at this. 'The parents of the missing teenager' - they found out I was still missing - 'seemed reluctant to discuss their child's situation, although it was clear they were fond of them.' Misam. My parents knew what happened to me! They knew I went to the future! And... they just wanted what was best for me."  


"They must have been something." Misam teared up a little. "To have that kind of relationship... I mean, not everyone gets that."  



	5. Chapter 5

"That would certainly explain something, wouldn't it?" Vala leaned down to take a look at the underside of the Ancient time travel device, now removed from the jumper and mounted on a transparent table at the SGC. Part of a Goa'uld hand device was wired into the time machine and hidden in a small compartment only visible from the bottom.  


"Dr. Lee thinks this might be the same hand device as the one that was tied to Sirustep," Daniel told her.  


"So she had more than one?"  


"Well, possibly, but what I mean is this might literally be the same device. It did travel here from almost 400 years in the future, after all."  


"Oh. So... what does that mean for us?"  


"That sometime in the next 392 years, someone needs to find a jumper with a working time machine, rig it so it only activates when the hand device detects Sirustep's symbiote, _plus_ make sure it goes off automatically and takes the pilot to the year 2005. And then leave it on the planet where Sam says it was found."  


"Carter?"  


"No, the alien Sam."  


"Well. Who's going to do all that?"  


"My guess is Sirustep will eventually do it herself. But hey - we've got a while to figure it out. We're hoping we can get Sam, Ashley, and the jumper back to the 24th century through other means."  


* * *

Ashley and Misam sat across a table in a common area aboard the _Daedalus_ , a U.S. Air Force spacecraft outfitted with Asgard technology. Despite the vessel's reliance on alien engineering, its interior design was Earth through and through - to Ashley, it looked just as plain and unassuming as the SGC.  


"Ten more days 'till we get to the Asgard homeworld," Misam said. "I figured traveling back to the future wouldn't be too hard, but I guess it never occurred to me that it would be the Asgard who'd help us out on this. I mean, even in the 24th century, we still don't really know what they were like."  


"They _are_ from a galaxy far, far away, right?"  


"Good point. You know, this sort of time control tech could really revolutionize the food supply. Just put your apples in a time distortion field. They'll stay fresh for decades."  


"That's what you'd use it for?"  


"That, and glowsticks." Misam adjusted the collar on his shirt. "You know, I don't think I told you this before you left, and it's just occurring to me now that you might not have heard."  


"Heard what?"  


"I had applied for that position with General Interplanetary, and they are _quick_. I already got back my assignment."  


"Wow!" said Ashley. "Good for you!"  


"It's delayed until they have enough people for the team, of course. But there's already a couple people on it. You're one of them."  


"Wait. I'm on the team too? Even though I have no experience and a high school education that's centuries out of date."  


"You might need to make sure you've given them the right mailing address, Ashley. But yeah, they want both of us. And a guy named Leaf."  


"Leaf the monster?"  


"Yeah, that is what it said... Thought it was kind of odd. You know him?"  


"He's a friend of mine from off-planet. Lives in my building. Gray, furry, _loves_ talking to humans."  


"Ashley!" Misam smiled. "Look at this! You want to talk about making a difference, here it is. This team is coming together because of you."  



End file.
